That Thursday was a really hard day - we were at the absolute limit of deciding whether or not to do a late termination. We had just those two days from Tuesday to Thursday to come to terms with the diagnosis of severe, early intra-uterine growth restriction (IUGR), to try and understand what it all meant, and to balance the chances of this baby living and doing OK, versus it all going horribly wrong - and defining what "horribly wrong" would be. After a more reassuring chat with the consultant, and an aminocentesis to check for chromosomal abnormalities, which came back negative, we decided that the odds of a good outcome were sufficient that we didn't want to terminate. Actually reaching the point where termination no longer was an option relieved a lot of the pressure, at least initially. There was nothing we could do, from then on, except wait and hope that the pregnancy would keep on going for long enough to allow the baby to grow as much as possible and develop as much as possible. We had another scan on Friday, and while he had grown a little (from 437g/15 oz to 521g/1 lb 2oz) some of the other things they look for to see how he's doing had got a bit worse (amniotic fluid levels, end-diastolic flow in the umbilical artery).
So we're still here, but I have another scan on Thursday where we'll see whether I can go on another week or not (and further weekly scans for as long as possible). He'll be 26 weeks on Thursday, so I really, really hope that it won't have got worse by then. He's still so borderline in terms of viability that another couple of weeks could make all the difference, in terms of both survival and all the risks of things going wrong due to prematurity. These risks are massively freaking me out - the huge range of problems he could have, physical, mental or neurological, acute or chronic, severe or mild - all well-documented and all-too accessible in endless scientific articles accessible from UCL's electronic database of medical journals.
Will our son live? If he does, will he be horribly disabled? Even if he is only mildly affected, how will that change our lives from the one with a "healthy baby" that I'd imagined? Awfully, these seem to be not concerns for the well-being of a little child, but selfish worries about how my life will be more difficult, sad and scary than I had planned. Worse, it's me, or something about my body, that's causing this all in the first place. Something, at some point, must have caused the placenta to start to malfunction. What was it? Could I have done anything to stop it? Will it happen again? All the time I am worrying about what will happen to me, I am starving my son of the nutrients he needs to grow and become healthy.
There are positives. As Chris points out, given the chance, we're going to do our damnedest to make sure that whatever problems our little one has, he gets as much help as possible to overcome them. He's still there - we've got past one scan. May we get past many more before he needs to make an entrance to the outside world. We're at UCLH, which is good at looking after tiny babies. We'll get intensive parenting training from the neonatal intensive care unit, and lots of future checkups and care. We're not alone - not only do we have each other, which has been so important and will make sure that we are OK whatever happens, but our families and friends have already been so supportive. So, fingers crossed! Hopefully we'll still be here in a week. Then another one?
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